The R2 Standard is the leading certification for electronics repair and reuse. As the housing body for R2, SERI maintains the R2 Standard, related documentation, guidance, and facilitates its ongoing development.

SERI works with partners throughout the lifecycle of electronic products to ensure that they are managed responsibly. SERI's programs focus on education, outreach, safety, and international development.

SERI offers a variety of educational and training opportunities for recyclers, as well as opportunities for auditors and consultants. These trainings focus on implementing the R2 Standard, realizing a return on the investment in certification, discussing relevant issues or challenges related to recycling practices, and other topics.

One approach is to create individual "silos" or document systems for R2, RIOS, and/or 14001 and 18001. While this is an acceptable approach, it can lead to a large number of documents and a lot of duplication. When faced with the simultaneous management of multiple certification systems, the silo approach becomes unwieldy and, frankly, does not allow managers to take full advantage of leveraging each system to enhance the R2 requirements.

A better solution? Where there is either exact or related overlap, R2 managers should leverage across certifications to reduce documentation. Some examples of overlap:

No Direct Overlap

Some Overlap

Exact or Similar Overlap

Reuse/Recover

Tracking Throughput

Responsible Management

Focus Materials

Legal Requirements

Data Destruction

EHS Management

Insurance, Closure

Focusing on documents such as quality goals, management reviews, corrective/preventive action reports (CPARs), and non-conformances as examples, are all common to each of the certifications. A recycler needs only a single list of corrective actions that document actions across the Quality Management System -- not multiple CPAR logs. Auditors want to see that CPARs are being logged, and one log for all is usually adequate. The same holds true for quality goals, policies, and non-conformances.

Risk Assessment provides another opportunity for integrating R2 requirements with those from other systems. Likewise, the R2 Downstream Due Diligence can track directly with 9001 Vendor Approval, or the numerous types of EHS monitoring in R2 correspond to many items found in other certification standards. R2 requirements can even be enhanced by integrating them with related requirements from other certifications. And, importantly, a fully integrated system can save you up to 20% in audit costs on an annual basis.

As a growing number of upstream OEMs and mid-stream service providers mandate specific certifications of their supply chain, using a "silo" system will become very costly and cumbersome to sustain. Having an integrated system, with a core set of documents that are applicable across all certifications, and that also meet auditor requirements by tying system procedures to specific certification requirements, makes a lot of sense.

The R2 Standard is the leading certification for electronics repair and reuse. As the housing body for R2, SERI maintains the R2 Standard, related documentation, guidance, and facilitates its ongoing development.

SERI works with partners throughout the lifecycle of electronic products to ensure that they are managed responsibly. SERI's programs focus on education, outreach, safety, and international development.

SERI offers a variety of educational and training opportunities for recyclers, as well as opportunities for auditors and consultants. These trainings focus on implementing the R2 Standard, realizing a return on the investment in certification, discussing relevant issues or challenges related to recycling practices, and other topics.